The Scottish Nationalist Party?

Looking at the way Dundee West MP Chris Law was dismissed during his recent House of Commons exchange with the Prime Minister the comments of the First Minister of Scotland last weekend come to mind, about how Westminster would be making a big mistake by disregarding Scotland.

Asking whether the Prime Minister had had a chance to read the compromise proposals for Brexit which First Minister Nicola Sturgeon had put forward, and seeking clarification on when she was going to publish her own proposals, over the baying cacophony of exclusively privately educated millionaires on the benches opposite him, Chris Law, as is Theresa May’s evasive way, had the first part of his question ignored.

May told the Scottish MP that her government would set out more detail for its Brexit plans in “a matter of weeks” before making the oft repeated, almost automatic, response every Tory leader makes when asked about Europe by an SNP MP, along with the same deliberate jibing mispronunciation of the word national they always use too, when she said “I would like just to remind the honourable gentleman when he talks about the Scottish Government’s plan that of course it is his party, the Scottish Nationalist Party, that wants to leave the United Kingdom and therefore leave the European Union.”

I would advocate that Scotland’s members of Westminster’s parliament (minus three) stop correcting this deliberate malapropism every time they are subjected to it, and instead, when the Tories refer to the Scottish ‘Nationalist’ Party simply break protocol and refer to them as the Conservative British Nationalist Party. I’m sure John Bercow would have something to say about it. What’s a censure amongst friends. The ranks of the SNP benches can share them out. Do it three or four times each time the Tories use their standard nationalist wisecrack, and get flung out for the day. I can think of better places to be flung out of. It’s slightly childish, but no more childish than the majority of the goings on in the Palace of Westminster.

At least that response might get a bit of publicity, and may even highlight the subject of what nationalism actually is to the good folks of middle England, the folks who, when they hear the two minute reports of these skirmishes on the news whilst eating their tea-time meal, are supposed to get the entirely wrong, and falsely negative, picture of Scottish politics, which is why the Tories do it in the first place. That way too these folk might find out the facts about what form of nationalism the democratically elected members for Scotland represent, and perhaps consider what form of nationalism their own government are increasingly displaying under the guise of patriotism.

The British state propaganda campaign is in full swing to try and convince the people of Scotland who didn’t vote for self-government the last time that Scotland as a nation is losing interest. This is completely fabricated nonsense predicated on establishment hopeful self-fulfilling prophecy. As Stu Campbell has highlighted, everybody and their auntie is ‘urging’ Nicola Sturgeon to put away the question of independence. Why is that do you think? Simple. They fear what is coming.

The SNP now has more than 120,000 members, the Yes Movement are beginning to rumble, and after this weekend’s convention, will start to get organised. Polls, which the media highlight as evidence of the apathy towards self–government, show a steady 45% in favour of independence, in a period where there is no set date for a future referendum, and therefore there has been no campaigning (the last campaign started with around 30% in favour). Probably most significantly, the withering economic bite and chaos which will accompany the next few years of disentanglement from the European Union hasn’t started yet.

The proponents of Brexit like to tell us that Brexit hasn’t caused the sky to cave in. No it hasn’t, but they haven’t actually done anything yet to disrupt the current arrangements, Just wait until they do. The impending Brexit disaster is certainly not the main reason Scotland should be independent, but it has given us a chance a bit earlier than we thought to get back on the road to getting there.

Meanwhile every step the Scottish government take in their negotiations with London is in the right direction, painting them further into a corner, so that when the time comes, the people of Scotland can be satisfied that the best way forward for their country is to govern itself.

Scottish Nationalist Party? Aye right Theresa. There’s only two Nationalist political parties, of the type you describe, in the UK. Farage used to lead one of them, and you are in charge of the other.